Servant Leadership – Creating a Circle of Safety for the Team Inside Your Project

IPLC 2018 Servant Leadership – Creating a Circle of Safety for the Team Inside Your Project with Catalin Dogaru

Synopsis: The moment the project starts, an entire “army” of forces exert a lot of pressure upon the project environment. According to the laws of physics, a force is getting stronger based on two triggers: if the “dimensions” of the source exerting that force get bigger or if the acceleration with which the force is applied increases. However, the most important and the most sensitive “element” of the project environment is the project team, which, consequently, becomes the most affected by the above mentioned pressure. And when this happens, people feel threaten, become insecure and stressed. Their performance is negatively affected. They worry more on pushing back and dealing with the pressure than on getting the project done and/or finding efficient and effective solutions to different issues or complex project problems.
At this point, they need protection. They need to know that they are safe and that somebody is making sure of that. And this “somebody” should be their leader, the project leader — the project manager. He or She should be able to build-up, using his leadership skills, a safe environment for the team to perform. He or She needs to transcend his or her individual self-interest and serve the others (the project team) by making them feel safe in the project and by helping them grow both professionally and personally. And the best way to do that is for the project man-ager to become a servant leader.

Speaker’s Bio: Catalin-Teodor Dogaru, MBA, PhD, PMP, is a trainer, consultant and managing partner at TSP (smartprojects.ro). He is an enthusiast of project, process and program management that constantly seeks out the talent and novelty in this professional domain. LIMC Alumni, MBA and PMP certified, Catalin managed international projects (in Europe, Middle East and Africa), offering, at the same time, dedicated learning sessions that helped growing the project management community. His games, sense of humor, engagement and tenacity are just a few of the elements contributing to the delivery of successful trainings, workshops and presentations, to which participants are always willing to return.